Spare RC Gimbal Converted Into Unique Joystick Input

As seen here, YouTuber Gigawipf upgraded his Taranis gimbals some time ago, and while certainly not as good as what he’s now using…

YouTuber Gigawipf upgraded his Taranis gimbals some time ago, and while certainly not as good as what he’s now using, there’s noting wrong with the old ones. He decided to reuse one to make a unique high resolution joystick setup that emulates an Xbox gamepad. It’s a really excellent idea, and the conversion process appears to be pretty straightforward.

His new device is built around the STM32F103-based Blue Pill, which was chosen for its 12-bit ADC resolution versus the 10-bit resolution of most other Arduino-style boards. This board fits nicely in the bottom of the unit’s 3D-printed frame, which houses the gimbal and a half-dozen Cherry MX switches for control on a top plate. The project is brilliant in its simplicity, and it seems that it could be set up as a really nice auxiliary shortcut keyboard when he’s not using it for gaming.

The build process can be seen in the video below, along with him using it to play a racing game called Absolute Drift with what appears to be considerable skill at the end. Print files are available on Thingiverse and you can download code there or find it on Pastebin as well.